OMM 2026 - Storm Boelo stops play

Dumfries and Galloway isn't a terrible journey for us, so we just took the afternoon off to get up there. We left about 1300 and got to the event centre at about 6, to find a large swampy mud-pond just in front of the gate. We've had trouble getting out of fields before, but rarely getting in. Taking a run up and revving hard got us through the swamp and we were soon parked up.

We'd picked up some buffet food at Morrisons in Dumfries for dinner, so I picked up my bag and we went over to registration to get tracker/dibber. While we were there we did a bit of shopping in the event shop, and bumped into Mandy & Shirl.

After a chat we went back to the van to have some food & get some sleep. Our start time was 8.45, with a half hour walk to the start we needed to leave at 8.15.

In the morning we had a brew, finished putting a few last bits in the bags and set off walking to the start. The weather was OK so far, and the track was easy to walk on.

At the start we dibbed then started planning. 

I always start with the run in - I want to know how we're getting to the finish when we're in a rush to avoid penalties. There was a clear track to the finish with a few controls along it (although it wasn't as quick as it looked - nice sting in the tail from the planner, more on that later). That gave us the direction we wanted to come in. There was an area close to the start with a couple of 30s, so we headed out that way with the intention of replanning once we'd got some way in.

First of all we had to wade through a river, so our feet were nice and wet from the beginning. It was only about ankle deep on me though, so not too bad yet.

Then we started fighting our way through the tussocks. Deep, dense tussocks and a steady climb up to the first control. The control was the top of a reentrant and fairly easy to find. Then on to the next, which was at a lochan close to a wall corner. I drifted off to the right on the descent of the nose through many many bogs, until Claire pulled us back on the bearing and straight onto the control.

We set off to cross the hard boundary and, having looked down into the valley, decided to cut straight across what looked like an appalling bog on the map but was OK on the ground. The river crossing was easy enough, and we got to the wall crossing.

We weren't completely sure of our plan at this point. There was a 50 point on a hill to our north, and a clear path for a good part of the way, but I was second guessing whether we'd be over-committing. In the end I decided to just give it a go and we got moving down through a very very boggy path onto the forestry track. The track was really easy going and gave us chance to warm our feet up, until we cut off the path to start heading up to the control.

This was where we made an embarrassing but ultimately not serious mistake. To aging eyes with contact lenses in, AO and AQ look very similar. One was a boulder, the other a lochan. So off we went, in search of a lochan. Straight past a boulder. Eventually we reached a point where Claire thought we'd gone way too far. I checked and agreed, and resected where we were from some features in the valley below us. Sure enough we'd overshot, and were approaching our 2nd control on this leg, a 30 pointer. We followed a bearing up to the lochan that was actually our second target on this leg, dibbed and turned to return to the first target, the boulder 50 pointer below. Any further into the tussocks northwards was out of the question for the time we had, so it wasn't a big deal as this would have to be an out and back leg anyway.

This was when the weather, which had so far just been a bit poor, started to get worse. Claire was being severely buffeted and we were both being hit by horizontal sleet in 40-50mph gusts. Heavy waterproofs on over the Paramo smocks, gloves on, and on we battled. Dropping back the way we came, we soon found the boulder and the control under it.

On towards the track down into the valley and I was getting cold. My feet were numb and I was just above shivering level. I added a thick buff around my neck and another on my head, ate some food and kept on towards relative shelter on the track. Through a gate full of ankle deep cowshit - nice.

Once on the track, there was a constant stream of people heading toward the finish. We picked up a few controls along the way, but kept the pace up as we only just had enough time to get in, with ten minutes or so leeway.

The track (that clear run in I'd seen when planning) turned out to be very up and down. If we were slower on the climbs that might have properly caught us out, but climbing is our thing so we were fine and got in with 6 minutes in hand.

Mid camp - unaccustomed luxury, and the arrival of storm Boelo.

As we came into mid camp, there was an obvious area that was sheltered by trees on our left. We quickly got finished, picked up the splits printout and headed for the area we'd spotted.

The whole field was weirdly flat and sheltered, not like an OMM mid camp at all. This was great, I'd been worrying about a camp as exposed as Glen Arten 24 all day, given the forecast. We got the tent pitched, fetched water and got inside to warm up with a cupasoup and some dry clothes. Claire went over to talk to Mandy who was pitched nearby, then the weather turned and we took refuge. We had a couple of cups of tea, experimented with using survival bags to keep the foot ends of our sleeping bags warm and eventually used them to build a kind of windproof barrier around the bottom of the tent (inside) which cut the wind and warmed us up a lot.

After a couple of cups of wine and some chocolate, we settled in to go to sleep. The site was mostly quiet, although as the wind and torrential rain picked up you could have had the Black Dyke Band playing and we wouldn't have heard them.

I kept waking up through the night, worried about the wind and rain and whether it'd bring the tent down, scatter the stuff in the porch or just rain into the tent. In the event, apart from one peg needing redoing before we'd zipped up for the night, we were secure and stable all night. I'd pitched just slightly at an angle to the wind, so we didn't get it blowing straight through and it worked a treat.

Day 2 - a disappointing but understandable evacuation, a cold wet queue, and a lot of hardworking Scouts

The piper played at 6 and we dragged ourselves awake. I'd had maybe 4-5 hours, not bad for a mountain marathon. Claire about the same. We lay in our tent as the tannoy announcement came that day 2 was being rerouted onto the valley bottom bail-out route, then started to pack up. 2 guy lines came loose around this point - I think someone fell over them rather than them coming out, but that meant that the tent was a lot less stable.

Eventually we got the tent down, got everything packed and joined the huge queue to pick up day 2 maps/instructions.

We chatted with an OMM / mountain marathon veteran (Brian Layton) while we queued, then Ellie Salisbury passed by and joined in - she'd had a rough day with equipment failures the day before.

Finally after about an hour of queuing we reached the front, picked up maps and marked them up with the mandatory controls for the evacuation route. It was exactly what I thought - the path we'd used the day before, only more of it. Day 2 had some controls (and the outbound leg) in the plantation, which probably helped the organisers decision as the forest would not have been very safe in that wind.

We got going in a hurry, wanting to warm up but also to get back and get the van out of the muddy field. As usual in groups of runners they'd overtake us on the flat/downhill, then we'd overtake them on the climbs. Rinse (literally in that weather) and repeat.

Once we left the forestry area and started to climb the col, the ground got really wet underfoot. The wind and rain got harder as we climbed, then eased off as we dropped down into the valley beyond, and finally the sun came out.

The valley along the Pulnee Burn was pretty swampy, but we were keeping up a pace to keep our feet warm. A lot of people seemed to be struggling with the terrain and we overtook constantly.

Coming back onto the forestry track where we'd started the previous day meant the same river crossing in reverse. Only now it was a lot more than ankle deep. Just above my knee, which means a lot deeper on Claire. There was a rope on the crossing so it was fine, just cold and wet.

It took us 3:20 to do the 17km back, fairly good going and good training. We picked up some tea and food and listened to Wendy Dodds being interviewed on her 50 years of OMMs. Once done we headed back to the van to get changed and get the van clear of the mud. Just as we were about to leave a camper got wedged in front of us and had to be towed out. Once our turn came I once again gave the throttle some welly and we were straight through and out.

Looking at the day 2 map, it would have been a good day in better weather, and it's disappointing to miss out on that. I worry a lot about the way the climate is changing, and the inevitable impact that will have on our activities. Obviously the impact of climate change is a lot more serious than just what happens to our fun weekends, but it's a very visible example. And obviously Talnotry was a 400 mile round trip for a single weekend, which is pushing what I'm comfortable self-justifying a bit. It wasn't the best weekend of mountain marathoning we've had, but no one could have planned for such a major storm to hit just at the wrong time.

Talnotry 2026 will live on in OMM legend in the same way as '08 (although not quite as dramatic). As always the organisers did an amazing job - even more so than usual in the tough conditions. Bonus thanks to the Scouts who were amazing and cheerful throughout.

The controversy

It seems the OMM organisers have come in for some flak from Facebook keyboard warriors in the wake of the MRT call out.

A few facts:

• The linear courses were reduced in scope because of the weather.
• The score courses weren't, but that's because they're strictly limited to time anyway.
• At the time that the incident happened, Claire and I were a couple of km away near the top of Milfore. At that time the weather was very benign - a bit wet and foggy but we've seen far worse on bad summer days. The Saunders 2023 comes to mind.
• At the time the weather turned bad it still wasn't that bad on Saturday. It was gusting pretty high and there was hail and rain but just normal 'shit day up high in October' level. Enough that you didn't really want to be up there if you could avoid it, and a lot of people chose to drop down at that point (including us). That was the weather when the rescue team went up Curleywee.
• The weather did indeed turn completely to shit, at which point it would have been dangerous on the summits. That was around 1am, by which time we were all back at mid camp.
• The terrain around there is, admittedly, awful. That's the point. It would still be awful on a sunny midsummer day. It's just tussocky hell. That will have made the extraction difficult, and the chopper could only have landed nearby in much better (i.e. "not October") weather. It was worth trying, but it was probably always going to be a non-starter.
• There were half a dozen people with the casualty. She was surrounded by people with warm clothes, tents, survival bags, food, torches, more warm clothes, did I mention warm clothes yet?
• The rescue team knew to within 10m exactly where the casualty was. Compare that with your average MRT call out.

MRT have studiously not criticised the organisers, and rightly so. The loud-mouthed criticism comes from people who simply don't know what they're talking about. MRT is voluntary and donation funded, and made up of outdoor people like fell runners, walkers, mountain bikers, cavers - to a large extent it's the outdoor community's own self support, which as an added bonus also helps sheep, stranded motorists and inexperienced noobs. Social media users who aren't active members of the outdoor community really aren't entitled to an opinion.

Fell Relays 2026

Claire and I are not particularly active in the club at the moment. I've always been a bit 'arms length' with any kinds of clubs - I'm not very gregarious and people who are tend not to understand that; and Claire is still unable to run after years of one injury after another.

We do almost always turn out to volunteer though, and the Fell Relays needed a lot of volunteers. At the last minute it turned out I'd been missed off the roster, but Darren Tweed had too many jobs to do so I picked up a few. Claire was planned to be marshalling out on the course, but ended up on the finish funnel for most of the day.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We figured we should get to the park for 10.30, which should give me enough time to get out to CP1A at the minor summit north east of the road near Sourhall. It turned out to be about ten minutes too little, once I'd found the first aid tent and picked up my kit.

The spectacle in the park was extraordinary. I've never done the relays, although I've dropped Claire off for them (at Appletreewick 2 years ago). The number of people, tents and the bustle was quite overwhelming. I picked up my two SI controls and the ground spikes and set off out of the park.

I don't know Tod park very well, but I thought I knew a cut through out onto the road behind the park. It turned out to be bramble and nettle choked and even now on Monday I'm covered in scratches and stings. I didn't have time to search out an alternative route though, so just had to force my way through.

Up the track towards Tod Edge and Parkin Lane, passing runners doing a spot of reccying. Once I got to Parkin Lane I caned it (absolutely sweating buckets in base layer, fleece gilet and Paramo) up to CP1A. Dave Woodhead was already there camera in hand and had a good chuckle at my expense, which was fair enough.

I got my CP set up with about ten minutes to spare, then faffed with layers as I rapidly cooled and dried off in the cold wind. It took about 30 minutes between the first and last teams coming through, followed by Helen and Nick sweeping.

Helen wasn't sure if she was supposed to be pulling flags, and hadn't brought her phone, so once they'd gone I dropped down to the red route then worked my way back pulling flags & signs until I reached the junction and a steady stream of leg 2 runners heading for Flower Scar.

Then back down to Tod Edge to take over from Finn at the gate above the woods on shepherding duty. Literal shepherding - there were sheep in the field and we didn't want them getting into the woods while runners were coming through.

Finn was comfortably settled in a deckchair and dry robe, but a bit cold so he headed off home while I settled in to watch out for sheep and cheered on runners. In fact with the number of people bustling around the sheep had scarpered for the other side of the field, but it was as well to have someone there and it was a pretty good place to spectate.

I was there from 12.30 to 3.15, so I was a bit chilly and my bum was a bit numb by the end. From CP1A I could hear the tannoy, but not what was said. From the gate I could hear every word. I didn't realise until I got down to the field that it was Doni Clarke on the mic (more about that later), but I could hear someone massacring the pronunciation of 'Hebog'. I made an effort to spot the Welsh runners and say 'Da Iawn!' as they came through to try and make up for it.

At one point the quicker leg 3 teams started to come through and one runner spotted me, grinned and shouted my name. It was Barney Nikolich - I haven't seen Barney since we worked together in about 2018 so that was a nice surprise.

Finally the mass start for leg 4 kicked off and a huge stream of people came through. I started to pack up, chatting with Julian who was out supporting his club.

Sweepers Darren and Katy came through, Darren didn't have clippers for the cable ties but I had a knife in my first aid kit so I clipped off the signage, gathered up my many flags and signs and headed down to the park.

At the park I delivered all my burdens and went to find Claire. She was on the finish funnel and hadn't been able to get away for hours, so I went to find her a coffee. A bit later on as things wound down I hopped over the fence to stand in while she went to find the loo, and while I was there Doni clad in vivid pink suit was winding things up on stage. Thanking various people he called out his co-host Johnny Parsons from Pudsey. Later on I managed to locate Johnny - we'd been friends at school but I hadn't seen him since about 1989!

Finally we had a bit of a worry with a team missing on leg 3 - they came in tired but happy, and we started packing up. We were all done by half six, and the park was back to normal apart from some muddy marks that will soon heal (in spite of the snotty opinions of a passing dog walker).

The Harriers did an amazing job of the relays. I was reminded of a medieval tourney - whoever thought of putting the individual club tents along the side of the run in, that was a stroke of genius. The huge screen was a real focus, and Doni and Johnny's commentary & interviews brought a TV coverage style gloss to the whole thing, with a distinctly Todmorden flavour. An amazing job, well done to all!

The Long Mynd Hike - never again

The Long Mynd is the last of the 3 (Fellsman, Bullock, Long Mynd) longstanding 50 mile scouts events that I hadn't done. It clashes with the RRR so I never did it when Runfurther was still going. It's a hundred qualifier so is quite popular, but this year I put a reminder in the calendar to enter as soon as it opened. With hindsight I maybe shouldn't have bothered.

The start is at 1pm so on the day we set off about 8.30 and arrived in plenty of time. Registration was quick and easy although the hall was very busy. We went back to the van parked in a field behind the school to get our kit sorted out.

Around 12.10 it seemed like everyone had vanished. We quickly shouldered our bags and set off following the few who were still filtering out of the field, on what turned out to be a 20 minute walk to the start. Claire had been here before (both the school and the start field) for a couple of fell races.

At the field the sun was getting hot. We stood around in our queues waiting to exchange cards for tallies. At 1245 or so the tallies were handed out and everyone headed up to the top of the field for the start. Someone said something more or less inaudible over a tannoy and we were off.

The first couple of km we were fairly closely packed together. Once we started climbing up Caer Caradoc the crowds started to disperse and we were soon on the top in the sunshine, enjoying the spectacular views out towards the Wrekin.

The descent was steep and gravelly, and a lot of people were slipping. We were OK, but glad we were wearing grippy shoes.

At the bottom of the hill we crossed over to the short out and back up The Lawley, another interesting little hill with a pole on top. At the bottom we had a route debate - whether to follow everyone else, or take the road. The organisers had suggested the road and bridge over the railway, rather than the level crossing but no one seemed to be going that way and since we weren't carrying football boots the level crossing held no fears, so we kept going with the rest.

Looking forward from Caer Caradoc

Across the other side and the climb up to the CP at High Park. Greeted by a very enthusiastic scout who seemed to be having as much fun as we were, we beeped the fell track and filled up with water.

There was a portaloo at the CP, so we availed ourselves then carried on up towards Pole Bank, inhaling cheese pittas as we went. We got chatting with another walker who told us about several other events locally, and a bit about the history of the event.

Pole Bank didn't have a pole, but it did have a trig point and some cheery volunteers. It also had a turf zone (Claire had forgotten to stop turf earlier in the day). It was an out and back, so we turned back on our tracks. This was another route choice - OS Maps snap-to-path had chosen a route via Medlicott but a quick glance at the map suggested the better route was straight down to Coates Farm. I was really glad we took the latter option as the farm included an absolutely adorable and very friendly little black cat.

From Coates Farm we were on the road to Bridges, where lots of people were enjoying the sunshine outside the pub and cheering us on. More road up to Stiperstones, where Joe Faulkner was lurking in the car park for surprise kit check. Joe was asking to see head torches, and seemed to be enjoying kit-nerding out on the different torches people were carrying. 

The route over Stiperstones is rough underfoot, but nothing we're not used to and we made good time. We skipped climbing up to the trig, but decided that would be where we'd go for Claire's birthday later in the year as it's a really striking place.

The route followed the top of the ridge all the way along, then dropped sharply towards Habberley. Claire fell on the muddy path & lost a water bottle, but wasn't hurt beyond a bruised elbow.

At the bottom we opted to cross the fields instead of gaining height on the road, and came into Habberley where we met an enthusiastic crowd outside the pub.

The climb up Earls Hill was short and steep. Someone was running with a bluetooth speaker playing music, which pissed me off, and a loud voiced bloke was telling anecdotes to his friend. The anecdotes were quite funny, but we were glad to leave him behind on the climb as he was very loud indeed.

More happy scouts at the top, and we turned around for the descent, stopping just before the woods to put on windproofs and dig out head torches.

Back through Habberley where it was now fully dark, and up the road to Bank Farm and a cup of tea.

Sidequest - the history of the grouping rule

Grouping is a bit of a holdover from the days before trail running became a big thing in the UK. Fifteen plus years ago, the Scouts events (and the LDWA) were the main ultra distance events here. The assumption was that walking was the default (although many fell runners took part), and everyone would slow down at roughly the same rate.

Everyone hated the grouping rules. The Bullock Smithy never enforced it particularly strictly, although they retain the option in the rules and still encourage participants to group up. The Fellsman enforced it strictly, and got a lot stricter after a serious safety issue in 2012. They stopped enforcing the rule post covid when they brought in GPS tracking to pretty much universal sighs of relief, although it's still an option they can invoke if the conditions call for it.

Everyone had at least one grouping horror story, whether it was being grouped with someone who was  a complete arsehole; or someone completely irresponsible or inept. My own grouping experience from the 2011 Fellsman had been positive - I'd entered in a group of three, and when we lost someone to injury at Stonehouse we picked up 2 more who were well matched for speed, and good company.

So Claire and I weren't sure how strictly grouping would be enforced. We've done several mountain marathons together, walked thousands of miles through the night in all weathers and seasons, completed 2 LDWA Hundreds as a pair, walked and run the Fellsman together. We really hoped the grouping rule would be lightly enforced like the Bullock, and we'd be OK as a pair.

Long Mynd Hike part 2 - night time

By the time we reached Bank Farm it was apparent that we were going to get grouped. I'd overheard an conversation among volunteers about grouping. At Bridges CP the system for controlling groups had been in place and visible, and I started to feel uneasy.

We were eyeballing people in the hope of finding someone quiet we could get along with. Once we were ready to leave there was someone waiting, and we'd seen him running the descents during the day. He was on his own, not a member of a big rowdy group so we thought we'd be fine.

I won't give a detailed account of the rest of the event. Our companion was pleasant, chatty but not noisy. But he'd run hard to the mid point and burned out. He wasn't used to climbing, and the Long Mynd has 3000m of climb. Claire and I train specifically for hard sustained climbing.

We did the first 25 miles in 6 hours. The remaining 24 miles took 12 hours. The last 5km alone took 2 hours.

The unplanned sunrise

We weren't interested in our finish time - we're well past being precious about that by now, especially when walking rather than running. But the experience of dragging along at half your comfortable speed for many hours is excruciating, and what could have been a lovely walk through the night became an exercise in patience and forbearance.

There are multiple failures here. Anyone who works with me will tell you I'm not afraid to be assertive. But I don't like to punch down, and when someone is struggling I'm going to put my own feelings aside and try to help, even to my own detriment. Our companion probably should have recognised that we were struggling to go as slow as him, and hung on at a CP to regroup with someone else. The state he was in by the finish, perhaps he should have DNF'd. It didn't help that whenever I asked "are you OK" he was always really chirpy and upbeat, and likewise in  CPs, so there wasn't really an opening for "would you like to stop here for a rest and group up with a slower party?". Nevertheless, I should have said something at the time.

But in my view the retention of the grouping rule in 2026 is the bigger problem. There are many things wrong with the grouping rule as a safety system.

• It assumes a more or less consistent pace throughout. While that might be true for walkers, it's very much not true for runners, especially now when many more people are entering events that are stretching their capability to breaking point. We see an awful lot of runners who run the first part of an event then burn out and slowly plod the rest. Or, more often, runners who can't climb at any pace, so we catch them on every climb, then they catch us on the descents.
• You'd hope that marshals would be careful about gender mixes in groups (although looking at some of the groupings I'm not convinced). But how does a woman say "no, I don't want to be grouped with this creepy bloke I've been ignoring for the last twenty miles, even if you group me with him and another woman"? More difficult still, how does someone break a group when they feel uncomfortable but the social pressure is to continue? Far more men than women enter long distance events and I've heard quite a few women talk about being worried by the grouping rules.
• Even beyond immediate safety and practicality concerns, grouping assumes that people are gregarious and happy to be with others. Being grouped with a loud extrovert (or god help us some idiot with a bluetooth speaker) would completely ruin the whole event for us, and others like us.
• In benign weather, with hundreds of other people on the route, you're never alone for long anyway. Being grouped is completely disproportionate to risk under those circumstances.
• Where a group isn't working, as ours wasn't, it relies on tired participants to force the issue and overcome cultural/social pressure to deal with it themselves. It lets the organisers off the hook at the expense of participants.
• Mandatory grouping is probably discriminatory under the Equality Act (2010). The threat of it is likely to deter some people from entering at all (ADHDers for example).

Grouping was a "best we can do" sticking plaster for safety at a time when there wasn't an alternative. It probably wasn't a particularly appropriate solution on the LMH from the start - a more light touch implementation like that of the BSH would have made more sense.

Overall, the Long Mynd is a weird event. The Scouts love a night hike, but starting at 1pm means missing most of the beautiful scenery because you're walking in the dark from quite early on. At 50 miles an 8 or 9am start would force all but the very fastest into the night and give the rest more opportunity to enjoy the Shropshire Hills.

On the plus side everyone was absolutely lovely, the weather was fantastic and it was great to see so many scouts really getting involved. The organisation was more or less flawless. Food was limited to biscuits, sweets, crisps and hot drinks, but that suits me perfectly.

The LMH models itself on the Fellsman, but little resembles it. Even in the dirtiest of weather, the Shropshire Hills are never going to be as bleak and inhospitable as the tops of Buckden Pike and Great Whernside, and although the area isn't densely populated there are plenty of villages in the valley bottom. It doesn't seem to attract huge numbers of competitive runners (although the entry is enormous), and is more of a social event for groups of friends to enter. Entering in a group of 3 or more, if that's your thing, is probably great fun.

I'm glad to have ticked it off the list, but I won't be going back.

Kit

• OS 216, 217, 241 maps.
• Montane Prism hat
• Montane Fireball primaloft
• Columbia waterproof coat
• Kalenji waterproof trousers
• Patagonia nanopuff gilet
• buffalo mittens
• 2 fluo yellow buffs
• another buff
• UD Fastpack 20 bag
• screw top mug
• Saunders T shirt
• Patagonia mid length shorts
• Patagonia full length leggings
• Bridgedale socks
• Waterproof socks (on at the evening stop)
• Montane windproof
• ME wide brimmed hat
• Altra King MT 2.0 shoes
• compass
• printed map
• first aid kit
• SOL survival bag
• Zebralight H600fw torch & spare 18650 battery
• Small anker charger & watch cable
• small patches of retroreflective tape
• UD soft bottle
• Spare (empty) bottle

Food

• 2 cheese pittas
• 1 peanut butter pitta
• 2 cheese scones
• mixed nuts
• a few crisps at CPs.